New Obama Scandal: ‘Cash & Curious’

The Associated Press reports that documents reveal how the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) worked with the “Beltran Leyva drug cartel and a cell of money launderers for Colombia’s Valle del Norte cartel” to launder drug money and lose it here.

“The group of officials conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in the United States, Canada and China and smuggled and laundered about $2.5 million in the United States. They lost track of much of that money.”

In Fast & Furious, federal agents lost track of firearms they forced gun stores to sell to Mexican cartel straw buyers, in violation of federal law. These guns went down into Mexico, where they were used to murder hundreds of Mexican citizens, as well as Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Now, the DEA “lost track of the money” they helped the cartels smuggle back across the border into the United States. Money flows north, guns flow south, people die, criminals get rich, all courtesy of the Obama administration.

Remember, this is the president who told the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence that he was working on some special gun control project “under the radar.”

Isn’t this curious?

Former civilian disarmament supporter and medical researcher Howard Nemerov investigates the civil liberty of self-defense and examines the issue of gun control, resulting in his book Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It Working? He appears frequently on NRA News as their “unofficial” analyst and was published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics with David Kopel and Carlisle Moody.

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21 Comments, 5 Threads

You know it,I know it and alot of other people know BHO is a muslim,but how
come no one speaks about what is so well known??Especially those running for
President. Instead they war on each other and nothing ever changes. Face up
to the fact,Our Republic most certainly is dying !!!

The linked AP article describes an incredibly challenging DEA investigation spanning numerous countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia. The AP article also describes a Mexican criminal organization typical of the targets of such investigations: “On Monday, police in western Mexico found the bodies of 13 men at a gas station in the state of Michoacan … threatening messages were found with the bodies (t)he western state is home base to The Knights Templar cartel, which like its predecessor, La Familia, is a pseudo-religious gang specializing in methamphetamine production, drug smuggling, extortion and other crimes.

Such complex organized crime investigations typically involve government sources and/or undercover agents being of or participating to some degree in illegal activity including the movement of contraband guns, money, street narcotics, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, etc. It is a terrible dilemma for prosecutors and case agents to decide when to end the investigation and attempt to execute search and arrest warrants. The primary dilemma is to balance harm to the public of the illegal activity with the need for a thorough investigation to identify key subjects and locations and collect sufficient evidence to be sure of winning at trial against well paid defense attorneys.

During the conduct of such investigations, it is inevitable that government investigators will make mistakes because, unlike movies and TV shows such as “Bourne”, “24″, etc. it is very hard for case agents to know what subjects and sources are doing 100% of the time.

Mr. Nemerov, what is your basis for implying misconduct n the part of the DEA by referring to this activity as “curious”? In how many organized crime investigations have you participated, served as case agent, source handler or undercover agent? Please describe your education and career so the readers can assess your qualifications to have made this remark.

PJM has another columnist who, while doing some decent reporting on ATF’s Fast and Furious, went way over-the-top in implying that the investigation itself was somehow illicit, rather than a complex case which had mistakes. When I tracked back to the author’s website he indicated that his career background was webpage designer and used car salesman. Such a background doesn’t impress me as a providing the qualifications for one to opine on the merits of complex undercover investigations. Perhaps your background is a bit stronger?

Since you brought it up, what’s your expertise? Do you have a degree in criminal justice? What about journalism? After all, according to your criteria, you don’t have the right to write about my post unless you have the appropriate accreditations.

It’s funny how supposedly iconoclastic bloggers, supposedly engaged in fearlessly challenging the” powers that be”, seem to be upset and unable to respond when their credentials and lack of supporting analysis are questioned.

Mr. Nemerov, my challenges still stand: 1. How is the conduct of DEA in this case “curious (with its suggestion of impropriety”) rather than just an apparent case of federal special agents trying to conduct an incredibly complicated undercover operation? 2. Do you have any particular experience or education which would facilitate you analyzing the available information and coming to a valuable conclusion, especially since your conclusion (“curious”) seems to question the integrity of the agents involved in the case ?

I wonder why you react so strongly to my asking for your credentials to make sweeping judgments on these complex matters. Some PJ authors (Goldman, Hanson, Ledeen, Rubin, etc.) have extensive academic, practical and/or high level government experience which informs their commentary. Others, such as Fernandez have a track record of years of writing detailed and perceptive analysis, along with some pretty good credentials.

One of your commenters asked for my qualifications to comment on your post. I salute him for his witty chicken/egg argument argument. My license to comment was given by President Theodore Roosevelt in his poem, “In the Arena(http://www.poetrygift.com/arena1.html)”.

As to my qualifications in criminal investigations (although I don’t understand why you would think that a reader has to have qualifications to thin that an author’s conclusions are sweeping and unsupported): ten years as a federal special agent investigating organized crime and related cases and three years as an advisor to the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan applying those techniques to counter-insurgency operations).

Otherwise, you still have not responded to an important point: If it’s okay for you to derogate my writing because I am not qualified as a federal LEO, how come it’s okay for you to propose yourself as an editorial professional without proper credentialing?

Double standard doesn’t play too well in public. It only affirms the public’s growing distrust of the federal government, since there are two standards of behavior. The public must be held accountable by any means, while government employees and elected officials have no accountability.

You wrote my “conclusions are sweeping and unsupported…”

You obviously haven’t been reading my coverage of Fast & Furious. It’s all documented. I cite everything I write about. Seems like this is more of your “counter-insurgency operations.”

By the way, March, I didn’t see your comments challenging CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson for covering Fast & Furious. Nor did I see the video of you chiding Darrell Issa during his F&F investigations. Neither of them have the law enforcement experience you claim.

Marc Marc Marc, tsk tsk tsk,
If you’d like to read something from a real life law enforcement agent, read Jack Dunphy here on PJM.
The word ‘curious’ got caught in your craw today, and that is curious…

Does your expert investigative eye tell you that Obama’s silence when the Iranian regime was failing, then the support of the Global Islamist Spring, while the Admin now gets tight with the Muslim Brotherhood, and now releases Taliban leaders, after the military was ordered to provide al Qaeda air and ground support in Libya and room to now expand in Iraq, is all some kind of massive global sting operation we don’t know about? Or are Americans getting tricked while the terrorists get the treats? You get the picture: “Happy belated Halloween, courtesy of the White House.”

Speaking of which, what is your take on the widespread fraud and corruption in the mega-billions porkulus feast for Obama’s friends and supporters? Was that a sting operation gone wrong too?

“Mr. Nemerov, what is your basis for implying misconduct n the part of the DEA by referring to this activity as “curious”? In how many organized crime investigations have you participated, served as case agent, source handler or undercover agent? Please describe your education and career so the readers can assess your qualifications to have made this remark.”
??????????

Dear Mr. H, what are you qualifications to question the work of a blog commentator? How many blogs have you written for, set up, designed? From what school of Journalism have you graduated? Please describe in detail your education, background, political views, and your duties as a public relations person for the DEA.

Sometimes, as my fingers dance nimbly across the keyboard, I don’t apply enough downward force on one of the keys. The result? “…you qualifications…” Why is it that I don’t catch these peccadilloes before posting? I don’t know.

“PJM has another columnist who, while doing some decent reporting on ATF’s Fast and Furious, went way over-the-top in implying that the investigation itself was somehow illicit, rather than a complex case which had mistakes.”

March, since you are acting in the capacity of DEA Public Relations, you have publicly confirmed that the DEA lacks the competency to handle, as you put it, “complex organized crime investigations” without losing track of drug cartel money they were supposed to track.

Perhaps you could answer these questions:

1. When a private business messes up due to incompetence and loses their client’s money, they have to make good on it. Is the DEA going to refund taxpayers for the personnel, office, and field operating expenses wasted by their incompetence during this investigation?

2. When employees mess up and cost a private company millions of dollars, they usually are fired and perhaps brought up on embezzlement charges. What is the DEA’s plan to bring the incompetent agents to justice?

Once more I’m reminded of the curious case of what was discovered on a FARC laptop seized in a raid by Colombia. Namely, that FARC was in communication with Congressman James McGovern, and that one of the topics discussed was the “opportunities” an Obama administration would provide.

“Washington, DC. 16 July (Asiantribune.com): The principal character behind the screening of the Channel 4 documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Field’, a very good propaganda ploy the pro-eelamists in the United States unleashed, at the US Congress in Washington for American lawmakers and their staffers was Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern.

Yet the foreign policy handlers for Sri Lanka in Colombo and Washington failed to use strategic communication and public diplomacy to remove this event from the headlines focusing on the man, McGovern, who has a record of maintaining contacts and supporting terrorist/guerilla movements whose main aim was to destabilize or overthrow democratically elected governments.”

While your investigative and advisory backgrounds are both significant and impressive, I find it curious that you would take issue with someone–Mr. Nemerov–who, by all appearances, seems simply to be putting 2 and 2 together. This is especially so, given the ever-emerging details of several botched (to put it mildly) investigations (e.g. Fast & Furious; others), the deaths of hundreds, and other instances of money laundering appearing in the newspapers in recent weeks.

I note too, Mr. Nemerov cited/linked an Associated Press article which, by virtue of their recently published internal memo, suggests a strong predilection for leftist/progressive commentary. As such, when even a regime-supportive mouthpiece is implicitly calling into question the loss of monies, it is not a at all untoward to expect/anticipate that we “rookies” are likewise able to question the capabilities of and/or motives behind those in the field. After all, they answer to bureaucratic minions who–with history as our guide–may have designs other than sound, solid law enforcement being front-of-mind. Suppositions–hunches, to use investigatory parlance–such as these, pose legitimate questions which, given the reporting and evidence thus far, Mr. Nemerov is ultimately pointing towards.

To suggest or intimate Mr. Nemerov’s question is illegitimate given his absence of “professional credentials” is not only hubristic but also extremely condescending. Facts being what they are, losing track of laundered money is evidence neither of professionalism or competence, regardless of how much experience one may have.

Sadly, many good citizens, both Hispanics and Americans, lost their lives because of this ill-conceived, federally-backed plan to confiscate all weapons in the hands of American citizens. That is FACT, and THAT is the MESSAGE. Damn!

Now, on to the bigger picture. Ahmadinahjad is visiting Venezuela! Why?, one asks. To sign Pacts with Hugo Chavez for real estate in Venezuela’s Northern most border states. This, because Iran HAS nuclear weapons, HAS tested missile delivery systems (medium range) and NEEDS a base in Latin America from which to launch these weapons towards any large American city. That is Fact. Iranian citizens will build, man and launch a missile attack against the USA from these Venezuelan bases. Period!

Second, why is little IMAM visiting Nicaragua? One asks. That is FARC’s home base. FARC, for American’s who don’t know control every illicit, illegal enterprise in ALL of Central and South America…raking in an estimated billion dollars every three or four weeks time.

FARC, for those American’s unaware have deep pockets, control all drug, sex, slave and extorsion trades in every corner of Central and South America. Mr. little IMAM needs this largesse to implement his construction program in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Third, Mr. little IMAM gets a free pass on teaching Islamism (Qu’ran) throughout ALL of Central and South America, with training camps to boot.

Fourth, little IMAM can recruit AT WILL willing and complicit citizens willing to risk their lives for little IMAM’s aims and desires.

Fifth, with America REDUCING its defence budget, REDUCING size of military capability, REDUCING border controls, REDUCUNG its presence around the world…little IMAM’s objectives of infiltrating everything American has just been given a Golden, free, Pass.

Wake-up, America. War has been declared on the USA from within and without. God Bless America. Amen!